I have been ambitious to be a somebody from the time I was 5 years old

At a flea market I always head for the junk jewelry table first.

I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me

At one time I smoked, but in 1959 I couldn't think of anything else to give up for Lent so I stopped - and I haven't had a cigarette since.

I've never cooked. I can't do much more in the kitchen than make a cup of tea and some toast.

Any audience that gets a laugh out of me gets it while I'm facing them

There's such a thing as theater discipline. One player doesn't appropriate another's inventions

Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to broadway.

I can never remember being afraid of an audience. If the audience could do better, they'd be up here on stage and I'd be out there watching them.

I can hold a note as long as the Chase National Bank.

I wouldn't change one thing about my professional life, and I make it a point not to dwell on my mistakes

The gift of God is grace.

Family will always kill you -- some bit by bit, others all at once. It is the love that does it.

27. Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is the acquisition of firends.

I have no use for knowledge that has not been preceded by a sensation

I spend about a year between novels

There will be no going back to the era before September the 11th, 2001 - to false comfort in a dangerous world.

You just go with your gut instinct, because your gut is smarter than your heart.

Acceptance means commitment, among other things.

Serbia has become a pariah nation, untouchable like a leper.

Do not banish reason for inequality; but let your reason serve to make the truth appear where it seems hid, and hide the false seems true.